Originally posted by Canada_Rockies I would accept that, provided that there were enough recharging stations for the hydrogen used in the fuel cells. Then you get the advantages of electric power and easy and rapid refueling.
Won't that drive the greenies crazy worrying about pipelines full of hydrogen ...
Actually, the great thing about hydrogen is that if you have a leak, it goes *up* and doesn't screw up your groundwater and crops.
A pipeline might or might not be more efficient than, say, cooling the stuff down to liquid and shipping it in rail tankers or whatnot, though, or transmitting whatever energy to some more decentralized cracking facilities. Some places, like Iceland, have all that geothermal energy to tap, and the energy efficiency on energy that'd otherwise not get stored at *all* isn't so much a concern.
Anyway, I'm pretty sure that apart from small countries we won't see anything like a complete changeover to electric, never mind in twelve years, and even there any actual transition would take a lot longer. People tend to forget entirely about the used car market, and even now there just aren't enough electric cars in existence to filter on down to most of the people in the world in that short a time, even if all the batteries were still up to snuff as of then.
Really I think that if people used the electrics for their daily commutes and in towns and small cities where they really make sense, it'd just make life better for everyone and what internal combustion applications are still out there will be way down the priority list of how to un-*ahem* the planet.
And I think Volvo going all-in on electrics and the like has a lot to do with the fact they've been kind of flailing around for marketshare for some years. (And just after they devised a lagless turbo system, too, pity.
) but it probably really makes sense for them to try to get ahead of the industry while the getting's good.
Last edited by Ratmagiclady; 04-14-2018 at 01:11 PM.